By Mike Whittingham, Executive Director of the Scottish Institute of Sport: (www.sisport.com)

There is no doubt that if Scotland is to succeed as a world class sporting nation it needs a constant supply of talent through its underpinning network.

As part of the world class system, one key area the Scottish Institute is already addressing is the notion of getting smarter and better at nurturing our athletes, ensuring we have a much lower attrition rate, and above all that our athletes are at all times properly prepared to perform on the world stage.

However the growing international competition does not get any easier. High performance sport is now a well funded global business. China currently has over 3,500 elite athletes in fully funded training programmes, designed to reap the rewards at both the Olympic and Paralympics in Beijing next year. With a pool of over 300 million to choose from, at this end of the spectrum, world class sport is merely a numbers game. 

Scotland by comparison should not be too hard on itself.  Our 90 to 100 elite athletes on the UK World Class Podium Programmes statistically confirm that we as a nation punch above our weight. 

But if we are serious about making London 2012 or Glasgow 2014 have a real impact in Scotland, we definitely need a more radical approach. Long Term Athlete Development models that may come to fruition in 16 years time will be too late!

No, now is the time to be far more ambitious and we have to act together to establish new plans designed to produce one simple objective - more Scottish winners.

In fact, how about a Scot in every major final of the 2014 (Glasgow) Commonwealth Games?

The time is now right to take a more proactive approach in this area of talent detection, talent confirmation, talent fast tracking and talent transfer.

In the past few months a team of expert staff at the Scottish Institute of Sport have carefully explored and evaluated the substantial research and practical experience from certain new initiatives adopted by UK Sport and the Talent 2012 group.

In terms of talent identification or confirmation, the system has taken a close look at the world of other professions that rely upon the regular injection of new talent, such as the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music, and even the SAS and the Red Arrows.  The Yehudi Menuhin School of Music is quite ruthless in its approach by insisting prospective talent must outshine talent already within the school by achieving a higher level of expertise or standards.

Analysing, defining and appreciating the components of talent is not the same as developing it.  To draw a parallel, when we plant a rose, we can rely on it growing into a fully blossoming, mature flower, providing we follow the standard procedures of bedding it and nurturing it correctly.

There are sports which have developed similar dependable formulas – cycling and sailing have an impressive rate of converting Olympic medal opportunities into real medals on a regular basis.

However other Olympic sports argue that talent spotting is far more complex due to many other variables which create challenging limitations.

With 2012 now the centre of UK Sport’s attention, enormous investment is being made in Olympic and Paralympic sporting talent. As a result the need to adopt a business approach has highlighted two specific areas of work.

Firstly, there is a need to look at ways of minimising the risks of that investment in talent not achieving its full potential.

Secondly, we need creative, but well founded, ways of accelerating our talent pool. There are excellent examples from the past that can provide us with text book case histories of how to nurture prodigious talent.

Sally Gunnell’s 400m hurdles gold medal in Barcelona can be traced back to a recognisable East German model, creating the right balance between a co-ordinated multi sport background with increasing dedicated specialisation at the appropriate times of her career, providing technical acquisition, speed and speed endurance.

Inevitably, capability or potential are words that have featured and been used to drive funding decisions, but even in sport humans also have their optimum capacity. Athletes, unlike plants, do not always respond or grow in linear ways, but can be given a ‘growth mind set’ they can aspire to.

My personal experiences coaching in track and field athletics has taught me that we need to respect the specific needs of each sport and athlete, and encourage creativity and individuality in our approach.

Statistics or data can be helpful but can often distort or deny the real performance behind the result. Allowances must be made for the latent talented athlete who breaks through at a much later age than our models might allow (such as Kellie Holmes in Athens).

In the relatively new field of ‘Talent Transfer’ we have witnessed the recent success of Rebecca Romero (Olympic silver medal winning rower who will compete in Beijing as a cyclist) and Dan Hunt her coach.

Listening to Dan describe the eventful journey that Rebecca embarked upon when transferring from rowing to cycling offered startling similarities to my experiences from 1988 to 1993, converting Kriss Akabusi, a good International 400m athlete at the time, to European and Commonwealth Champion, World and Olympic medallist at the 400m hurdles. However difficult, in the end it was the phenomenal attitude and desire of both athletes that shone through!

One thing however is certain.  Talented people left to their own devices will not fully reach their potential without the combination of the right athlete, right support and right effort.

Well known sporting champions at some stage in their career recognise that talent alone will not achieve their obsessive dream. Training, practice rehearsal and just plain old hard effort - all recent research proves this is the overriding factor.

Paradoxically it is this quality that can be an athlete’s downfall as it can lead to breakdown through injury or illness. This is where the coach and the supporting environment play such a crucial role.

Our job as high performance experts is to constantly provide new challenges for our talented athletes.  Repeat medallists are a measure of the success of our system, such as Katherine Grainger, Shirley Robertson and Chris Hoy.

We are now entering a new age where each sport should know the precise components you need to have to win on the world stage. The challenge is to use that knowledge effectively to help design, create and convert precious talent into winners. Sports coaches, parents and athletes need to be receptive and willing to introduce new ideas at a much earlier stage in their career.

Finally, all parents and coaches should be re-assured that when looking at key areas, such as talent transfer, it is not about poaching talent from one coach or sport to another.

Instead we are merely pursuing the most fundamental principle and beliefs that all coaches share: The innate desire to ensure that as coaches or high performance experts, we tirelessly explore every angle and work with our small, but talented, pool of athletes to ensure we optimise the chances of maximum performance in each of our preciously talented individuals.

MW

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